Bringing a WinningRace Livery to Life!

There are a few reasons you should really put some thought into how your race car looks. Peter Gregorian of C17media and our Editor Ian Rae discuss them and give you some insight that you can use yourself.

Motorsports is strongly ingrained in our culture at C17media. From our inception, we have worked closely with different motorsports organizations to satisfy their printing, livery and vehicle protection needs. When we reflect on where we’ve come from, a lot of our favorite projects involve designing and installing race liveries. There are many components that come together to create an attention grabbing livery that offers a competitive edge. This ranges from brainstorming designs that match an owner’s creative inspirations all the way down to using a variety of textures, materials and print techniques to elevate the appearance of a race car’s exterior.

Standing the test of time

Reflecting on motorsports history, in its most basic form, a “livery” was as simple as black-and-white number decals which were designed as a way of identifying drivers and their cars. Over time, the exterior bodywork of a vehicle has evolved to serve as a blank canvas for race teams looking to differentiate themselves from competitors, generate attention at events and improve brand awareness for drivers, sponsors and businesses. In essence, a well-designed livery capitalizes on the shapes and body lines of the car to generate an identity for the team and its fan base. In drawing a comparison between racing and nature, the terms camouflage, intimidation, and attraction come to mind when thinking about how an animal’s outer appearance contributes to its survival as a species. A race livery serves a similar function on the racetrack, offering aesthetic value in the form of differentiation, visibility and intimidation. These elements can be seen through one of our most iconic projects. The PFAFF Motorsports Porsche GT3 R - a car that originally began with a livery bearing shapes, patterns and sponsor colors - has progressed over the years to develop an identity around a distinct “plaid” pattern. This iconic design has created a global fan base that recreates the livery in video games and purchases collectibles bearing the branding. Looking beyond the aesthetic benefits that a livery offers, there are protective advantages as well. The vinyl film on which a livery is produced offers a thin layer of protection between bodywork and road debris. The greater number of layers that are added to a livery, especially in high contact areas such as the bumpers and fenders, the better resistance the bodywork will experience to track wear-andtear. Although vinyl wrap is not a permanent solution for eliminating damage, it helps minimize it. For the greatest appearance defence against race-inflicted damage, is often recommended that paint protection film (PPF) be applied beneath the livery due to this film’s thicker composure and self-healing

Finding Design Inspiration

Whether it’s motorsports icons, factory race teams or pure imagination, inspiration for a design can come from virtually anywhere. When reminiscing on legendary cars in motorsports history, the “Pink Pig” and “Salzburg” Porsche 917 race cars along with the “Gulf Racing” Ford GT 40 come to mind. These vehicles paved the way in motorsports for their respective teams and wore memorable, eye-catching graphics while doing so. It’s not a surprise that for those looking to pay homage to the trailblazers, these vehicles and their liveries serve as inspiration. For those seeking a more original and tailored design, a ground-up approach can be taken. Often, these liveries require a flexing of the creative muscles for both our in-house creative team and the customer. Finding the right elements that suit each owner’s unique tastes and circumstances can be a challenge, but digging into personal and professional preferences can be a good place to start for sources of inspiration. For example, an original livery can be imagined using business brand colors, vehicle sponsor logos, and a combination of abstract shapes or patterns that highlight features of the car.

Bringing it to Life

The process of bringing a livery to life can take anywhere from days to weeks depending on the design chosen. Often, if a livery is being designed from scratch, it can take multiple renditions to achieve a satisfying result. To offer a better visualization of the finalized design, a digital mock-up is rendered onto a photo of the vehicle model so both the owner and vinyl installers can envision the final product before production and installation begins. During the installation process itself, it is not uncommon to see liveries with multiple layers. Layering introduces a hyper realistic effect that captures attention and makes the livery standout on track. During an installation where the vehicle’s bodywork undergoes a color change, a base layer of colored vinyl film is applied. This layer sets the canvas for the following design elements. To create depth, the largest design elements which can consist of various gradients, patterns or shapes are then placed atop the base layer using custom cut vinyl decals. The final piece of the puzzle involves applying sponsor decals in their respective locations. Of course, no true race livery is complete without the addition of a race number which are placed in key areas on the exterior of the vehicle – namely the hood, doors, or trunk. Once it all comes together, a winning race livery design can offer drivers and teams an extra competitive edge to achieve victory both on and off the racetrack! From my point of view as the editor of Motorwerks Magazine I like seeing stunning liveries for a slightly different reason. They are a bit more selfish I am afraid. I tend to favor brightly colored cars with a well thought out livery and decal application because they will look good on the pages of MotorWerks Magazine. Just check out the photo of the Pfaff Porsche leading into this article. It just pops! It catches your breath and makes you go wow! That is good for Pfaff and Motul. We have just grabbed the readers attention and that can lead to brand exposure for everyone with decals on the car. The money you would spend on a livery and wrap installation pays off when the design is executed properly like it was in this case. Your investment has turned the race car from a white board into a billboard and you just have to see how many of them are located by any major highway to know they must work. Personally when we got our 2006 MINI Cooper S as a project car there was not too much

The Audi RS3 LMS TCR that Zachary Vanier drove to the CTCC Championship last year is a prime example of a well designed livery that performs well on track. The photographers love it, pretty well all the partners decals show up well and don’t meld into the background where they would be difficult to read. The FEL Motorsports owned car run by Pfaff Motorsport has inherited the “plaid” design made famous by their IMSA GTD Porsche and it quickly became a fan favorite. There is no mistaking who runs the car, the ‘plaid’ red and black just say Pfaff and the fans cottoned on to that fact very quickly. This is where a properly styled livery develops a brand awareness without all the hard work normally associated with that job. If racers take note os that fact and develop something along similar lines they would have a very good product to sell to a prospective marketing partner. Peter’s point of having a rendering that you could actually present to the potential client is spot on. Kenny Bernstein painted his whole race rig and pulled up to Budweiser to show them the possibilities. That turned into a sponsorship agreement that would last 30 years. You don’t have to go to that extreme but a proper rendering will go a long way to conveying the message.

thought put into a livery. This was for two reasons, the first being that the car would evolve and it did not make sense to come up with a design that would evolve as quickly as Cooper RSR would itself. Secondly, the magazine was in it’s younger days and we could not fund it. So it all became a bit piecemeal but still looked very presentable when we took it to the Motorama Show to go on display on our booth. We were recommended to go see MYC Graphics in Mississauga to get them to install the basics for the show, They designed and cut the yellow/black stripes that ran over the bonnet, doors and boot. What you can’t see in this photo is the subtle MOMO logo that is placed multiple time on the yellow portion of the stripes. The logos were a few shades different and looked really cool close up.

You will notice our marketing partner logos are placed along the rocker panels and are one color. There are pros and cons to doing this; you can see in the photo the logos are easily seen and read. The negative side is that the logo was developed in colors that they want to promote their company with a logo that is easily recognizable as being theirs. The problem could be that a red logo will just disappear on a red car. Using monochromatic logos is something you may have to discuss with your partners but the way I see it is my job is to give the company maximum exposure if monochromatic logos are the best way to do it, so be it. Now logo placement is also important. Don’t make the car look like a NASCAR! Sorry guys but the way the Cup cars logos are placed is silly as far as I am concerned. Too much color splashed all over and clashing with one another which makes it so hard to see what company logo is being displayed. Pretty well all of the decals you see on Cooper RSR in the photo below has been cut on my personal Roland Stika vinyl cutter. It is a great investment for a race team. It means no more running out to the graphics shop when you need a couple of decals cut. Companies like C17media have far more important jobs to do and cutting a couple of odd decals is not really their forte. Now I’ll let you into a little secret that I used when I was in charge of PR for a couple of World Champion drag racers. Many of our marketing partners wanted good photos with their logos prominently displayed. So I would swap decals on the prime front bumper area and get lots of photos that can then be printed and given to the marketing partner for them to put on their office wall. Hopefully this article gives you some insight into maximizing your marketing/promotional endeavors. Good luck and see you at the track.

The K-Tuned supported duo of James Houghton and Chris Boersma have also relied on C17media to design their livery and make and install their wraps. If you look at the photo of the Type R on the left of the page you can seen how the design has evolved since 2016 when another company designed the wrap. You can see how it was transformed by C17media by checking out the 2019 photo directly above this panel. Above it you can see how Boersma’s Civic almost has an inverted livery but both are instantly recognizable as the K-Tuned cars. When Houghton built his Acura TSX the livery was very similar but with more red camo applied. The camo is discrete but sticks in your mind, which is what the designers at C17media wanted it to do.

Motorsports is strongly ingrained in our culture at C17media. From our inception, we have worked closely with different motorsports organizations to satisfy their printing, livery and vehicle protection needs.

When we reflect on where we’ve come from, a lot of our favorite projects involve designing and installing race liveries. There are many components that come together to create an attention grabbing livery that offers a competitive edge. This ranges from brainstorming designs that match an owner’s creative inspirations all the way down to using a variety of textures, materials and print techniques to elevate the appearance of a race car’s exterior.

Standing the test of time

Reflecting on motorsports history, in its most basic form, a “livery” was as simple as black-and-white number decals which were designed as a way of identifying drivers and their cars. Over time, the exterior bodywork of a vehicle has evolved to serve as a blank canvas for race teams looking to differentiate themselves from competitors, generate